Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to provide additional information to support my question of privilege of Tuesday, December 5, regarding the Minister of National Revenue deliberately misleading the House.
In my submission to you, Mr. Speaker, I demonstrated on several occasions that the Minister of National Revenue tried to convince the House that no changes had been made to the eligibility criteria for the disability tax credit, as well as the way it is interpreted. I then provided an internal memo from the minister's own officials, the procedures and medical review team, that the Department of National Revenue was applying a new and different interpretation to the eligibility criteria for the disability tax credit.
I now have evidence that the minister's parliamentary secretary has also confirmed that the minister's statements were false. On Friday, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Revenue was interviewed on CBC News, and during that interview she was asked about the fact that the Canada Revenue Agency was applying different criteria and, because of the fallout from that, the agency had decided to pull back on applying this new interpretation.
She was asked if the government needs to say sorry for what people had gone through because of these changes. The parliamentary secretary said, “Of course, of course...we do apologize for that.”
The reporter pressed her again, stating, “So I just want to be crystal clear here. You said when there is an apology due, we offer one. But you're saying in this instance that you do apologize...”. Her reply again, “Of course.”
The body of evidence is overwhelming. This House can only conclude that, of course, the Minister of National Revenue deliberately misled this House.
On Wednesday, December 6, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader tried to defend the minister, and referenced page 86 of O'Brien and Bosc's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition. The parliamentary secretary said:
the following three elements have to be established when it is alleged that a member is in contempt or is deliberately misleading the House: one, it must be proven that the statement was misleading; two, it must be established that the member making the statement knew at the time that the statement was incorrect; and three, that in making the statement, the member intended to mislead the House. These criteria have not been met in the situation at hand.
I disagree with the member. To address the member's first element, I have clearly demonstrated that this minister's statements were misleading. To his second point, her own department officials, and now her parliamentary secretary, have revealed that the minister's statements were false. It is not credible for everyone else involved in the interpretation of the criteria to acknowledge the false statements except for the person in charge.
To the member's last point, and I covered this in my question of privilege last Tuesday, the minister made these claims time and time again during question period on many occasions, and anyone who has listened to her statements could not come to the conclusion that they were not deliberate. Clearly, her mission was to convince the House that no changes had been made to the eligibility criteria for the disability tax credit as well as the way it is interpreted.
I am certain that any Canadian following this story would be confused about the conflicting information available on this matter and would have some level of concern that this minister deliberately misled this House.
With that, I leave you, Mr. Speaker, with a ruling from October 21, 1978, where Speaker Jerome quoted a British procedure committee report of 1967, which states in part:
the Speaker should ask himself, when he has to decide whether to grant precedence over other public business to a motion which a Member who has complained of some act or conduct as constituting a breach of privilege desires to move, should be not—do I consider that, assuming that the facts are as stated, the act or conduct constitutes a breach of privilege, but could it reasonably be held to be a breach of privilege, or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should, in my view, leave it to the House.